Ted Grant

Socialist foreign policy

The large number of resolutions at the Labour Party
conference on nuclear testing and foreign policy demonstrate the concern of the
ranks of the labour movement at the present impasse in international affairs.
The Americans and Russians take turns at polluting the atmosphere by their nuclear
tests. At the same time the manoeuvring in international diplomacy continues at
an even higher tension than in the past.

The lying propaganda that the defeat of the German, Japanese
and Italian imperialists would bring peace to the world has been completely
falsified by the arms race following the Second World War. Britain is spending
£1,800 million, America £18,000 million and Russia £10,000 million to £12,000
million a year on armaments. The attempt by British imperialism to keep up with
the super-powers of America and Russia has virtually bankrupted her and is one
of the major causes of inflation.

The major cause of the crisis is the fundamental antagonism
between the nationalized economy of the Soviet Union and the other workers’
states and the capitalist powers of the world, especially the United States.
They cannot co-operate and live together in the long run. That is why the
United Nations remains merely a forum for all the powers, where only secondary
conflicts are solved. It cannot bring permanent peace as the history of the
post-war world has shown.

No agreement

Even to agree on the cessation of nuclear arms testing,
which affect the health of the peoples of the world, has not been possible up
to the present time.

The United Nations is not a power in itself, but merely
reflects the relation of forces in the world between the powers. The so-called
neutral bloc balances uneasily between the great powers. It cannot maintain an
independent role.

Labour workers should demand that the Labour Party stick to
fundamental socialist principles on this question. As a first step we should
demand the end of nuclear testing and a ban on the bomb. But this will not
solve the problem. Nuclear arms highlight the destructive capacities of modern
science and industry, bacteriological, chemical and other means of warfare
could be just as deadly if not worse even than nuclear arms.

Workers always lose

What then is the way out of this impasse? Socialists have
always taught that war was not a question of the wickedness of individuals but
the result of the conflicts caused by private ownership and profit and the
existence of separate national states. There is only one class which loses in
war and that is the working class. There is only one force stronger than any
weapon of mass destruction and that is the international solidarity of the
working class. Workers in America, in Russia, in Germany and in Britain, like
the workers everywhere, have their class interests in common. It is to them and
not to the rulers of the world, that the labour movement must look for a
solution of the problem of peace.

The labour movement in Britain, by fighting for a
socialist Britain, can give a lead to the world. American imperialism thrives
by pointing an accusing finger at the totalitarianism of the Soviet
bureaucracy. The Soviet bureaucracy secures its hold over the Soviet masses by
pointing to the danger of capitalist intervention as happened under Churchill
in the intervention against the revolution and as with Hitler’s attack. A
socialist democratic Britain could appeal to the American workers and to the
workers of the Soviet Union.

Sugary illusions

Russia’s arms are intended as a protection. But the Soviet
Government cannot solve its problems by flying in the face of the world working
class. Lenin warned during the first world war against “sugary illusions”
disseminated by the Labour leaders that the war would finally result in peace.
He said that unless the war was ended by a series of successful Socialist
revolutions there would be a second, a third and a tenth World War till
civilisation was destroyed. However, due to modern techniques, it is now
possible to exterminate all mankind in a third World War.

Mobilise the people round the issue of nuclear arms which
dramatizes the problem. Demand that the money saved be spent on raising living
standards everywhere. The technique and the resources are there. Use them for
construction not destruction. End the system that leads to war. Fight for a
socialist Britain in a socialist world.